IN JAPAN
To be quarantined in a house too small for the number of its occupants,
behind closed doors, each one of which bears aloft a sinister yellow
placard across which is printed in large, black letters: “Diphtheria,”
is no way to begin a visit to a strange and interesting country.
No sooner had Bessie, Charlie’s nurse, been released from quarantine by
the doctors in Yokohama than our older boy, Robert, developed suspicious
symptoms which, upon diagnosis, were pronounced to be diphtheritic. The
sore throat began before Mr. Taft left for Manila, and he was loathe to
go, but as the new serum treatment for diphtheria had robbed the disease
of much of its terror, and as we were in the hands of an excellent
American physician, Dr. Eldridge, I felt confident there was no cause
for serious apprehension.
We sent Helen and the baby to be taken care of at the Grand Hotel, while
Mrs. Wright, Maria and I resigned ourselves to a long and tedious period
of isolation. Robert’s diphtheria did not develop to a dangerous stage,
but the sore throat persisted and it was three weeks before we were
released upon a none-too-welcoming world. Our long quarantine had marked
us as objects to be avoided—in a social sense—even after the doctors had
pronounced us safe.
Mrs. Wright and my sister and I spent that entire three weeks only
wishing that we were in our own land where some friendly voice might at
least shout an inquiry about us from a distance, and not in this
far-away place where only strange and very foreign sounds came floating
in to us from curious and crowded streets whose every nook and corner we
were aching to explore.
Our house was charming. All the “foreign” houses in Japan seem to me to
be charming. The solidity of Occidental construction, with the light
touch of Japanese interior decoration, make a fascinating combination,
especially in that environment. The Japanese landscape is—well,
peculiarly Japanese, and the gardens, however “foreign” they may be,
have an air quite unique and unmistakably oriental.
The Foreign Settlement in Yokohama consists of a broad business section,
solidly built, on the low lands fronting the harbour, and The Bluff. The
Bluff is a garden of beautiful homes. At one end it rises high above the
bay and commands a wide view of harbour, town and Pacific Ocean, while
the other end runs inland to meet the higher hills beyond and forms a
deep valley in which has been built up a teeming native quarter full of
colour, of picturesque outline and of never-ending oriental clamour.
Around this village are terraced, bright-green rice paddies and high
hills covered with dark, Japanese pines which grow at curious angles.
Our house, a spreading bungalow in a large and well-kept garden, was on
the inland side and overlooked this valley. From a Buddhist temple on
the opposite hill, a quaint structure with uptilted roof and great stone
_torii_ gateway, came the ceaseless drone of a priest repeating over and
over an endless invocation to the constant, measured tum-tum
accompaniment of little wooden drums, while from the narrow streets
below rose the strange cries of itinerant food venders. Throughout the
whole long evening sounded the long wail of the blind _masseurs_ who,
with their thumping bamboo sticks, tramp from door to door seeking
patronage. At intervals the single low tong of a great temple bell set
the hills to vibrating.
We rented the house from an Englishman who was “going home” on vacation,
and with it we rented a complete _ménage_, including a most efficient
little Japanese woman named Matsu who served us both as waitress and
housekeeper and answered to the call of “Amah!”—meaning either nurse or
maid. Besides the Amah, there was only a cook, an excellent one, but the
two contrived to run the house with a smoothness and an economy which I
have never seen equalled. They were so economical, in fact, that we had
difficulty in getting them to serve to us enough of their well-prepared
food. There were six of us in family, not including Charlie, or Baby San
as he was called, and at each meal Matsu would bring in just six
portions of whatever there was, six chops, six croquettes, six little
fishes, always six—no more. We resorted to strategy sometimes and
announced, well in advance, that there would be guests.
“How many, O Ku San?” says Matsu cautiously.
“Well, maybe two,” says we.
Whereupon we would get eight little chops, or eight little croquettes,
or whatever it might be. But we couldn’t play this game very often
because we were afraid that if too many guests failed to materialise the
time would come when we really would be giving a party and be forced to
act out the “Wolf! Wolf!” story to our own very great embarrassment. I’m
glad to say this never occurred; Matsu always obeyed orders; but when an
unexpected guest dropped in we had to exercise the principle of “family
hold back” in real earnest.
However, while Matsu was in command none of us had any cause for
complaint. She had plenty of native shrewdness and didn’t neglect her
own interests to any appreciable extent, but she displayed none of the
traditional oriental duplicity which we had been warned to look out for
in all Japanese servants. She relieved us of all the responsibilities of
housekeeping and left us free to wander around among the fascinating
shops and to go off on long sightseeing expeditions at our pleasure.
While we were still in the midst of the miseries of quarantine I got my
first letter from my husband, and as he had sailed away into what to me
then was a very far distant and somewhat unreal world, I was exceedingly
glad to hear from him.
The _Hancock_ had stopped at Kobe and had then gone on to Nagasaki where
it had to lie for two days taking on coal. The Commissioners seem to
have begun by that time to chafe at delays and to long for their
settled, definite employment. But they had to go to Hongkong on some
business matters and it was from Hongkong that my first long letter
came. They were received by the British authorities with the usual
formality; pompous calls to be returned as pompously; dinners,
luncheons, club privileges, launch parties and much entertaining gossip;
but they were interested, principally, in meeting for the first time the
genus Filipino irreconcilable.
The Filipinos, after three centuries of Christian education, which had
taken the form of religious instruction only, had, with reason, risen in
revolt against the Spanish system of friar domination and had demanded
some measure of freedom and a voice in the control of their own affairs.
This is a long and complicated story which can only be touched upon
here.
They were engaged in a hopeless struggle with Spanish authority when the
Spanish-American War, unexpected, undreamed of, suddenly turned the
tables and placed them in an entirely new situation. They saw Spain
defeated and turned from the islands she had held since Magellan’s first
voyage, while another flag quickly rose above their ancient forts and
strongholds. Then it was that the handful of ambitious “illustrados,” or
well-to-do and educated ones, began freely to preach independence and
were encouraged by not a few Americans, including some in official
relation to the situation, who, in complete ignorance of real
conditions, approved the so-called aspiration and gave hope of its early
fulfilment.
The idea of these Americans was that our forefathers had fought for
independence and that it was against our most cherished principles to
hold any people against their will. But they didn’t take into
consideration the fact that the Filipinos were Malays, not ten per cent.
of them with even a primary education, used only to a theocratic and
absolute government and without any experience in the rule of the
people. Nor did they consider that our forefathers had, for a century
and a half before the revolution, been carrying on what was really
self-government and were better fitted by training and tradition to make
self-government work than any people in the world. They indulged in
sentiment to the exclusion of thought; and so the situation was created.
The idea of complete independence was never shouted from the housetops
in Spanish times, but the new flag represented free speech, a free
press, and such freedom generally as the Filipinos had never dreamed of
in their wildest aspirations and the “illustrados” and the men who had
tasted power in the insurrection against Spain were not slow to take
advantage of it. An alluring conception of independence, freedom from
all restraint and the enjoyment of luxurious ease, really, was sent
abroad among the densely ignorant masses by the handful who had
education, with the result that by the time the American government was
free really to face the issue, the demand for our immediate withdrawal
was unanimous, or nearly so.
But it couldn’t be done. Aguinaldo tried his hand at a government for
six months and failed miserably. Corruption was rife. Chaos reigned; the
country was impoverished and absolutely unprotected; and it didn’t take
the Americans long to recognise the fact that “independence” meant
nothing more nor less than the merciless exploitation of the many by the
few and the establishment of worse conditions than any the people had
ever known.
So we stayed; there was nothing else to do; and the insurrection against
constituted authority was taken up where it left off when Admiral Dewey
steamed up Manila Bay. It was hopeless from the start, and one after
another of the leading _insurrectos_, as the months went by, abandoned
the struggle in favour of prosperous peace and came in to Manila to take
the oath of allegiance to the United States. But as pacification
progressed a few of the leaders declared themselves to be
“irreconcilable” and either took to the hills with marauding bands of
_ladrones_, or went over to Hongkong and joined the little Filipino
colony there. This colony in Hongkong—which still exists, by the way—was
known as the “junta” and its business in life was to hatch schemes for
murderous uprisings, smuggle arms and incendiary literature into the
islands, raise money for carrying on hostilities and make itself useful
generally.
The methods employed by these “irreconcilables” were peculiarly their
own. They consisted, mainly, of coercion and threats of assassination
among Filipino people who were staying at home and endeavouring to keep
out of trouble. Then, too, they were reported to have made a great deal
of money by compelling Filipino hemp and tobacco planters to sell to
them these valuable products at prices fixed by themselves, and later
disposing of them in Hongkong at the regular market price which gave
them a tremendous margin of profit.
These were the conditions—merely sketched—which existed in the
Philippine Islands when the second Commission was sent out, and the
first Filipinos Mr. Taft ever met, he met in Hongkong. They were not
members of the “junta” but were high-class, wealthy, non-combatant
refugees named Cortez, who lived under a threat of assassination, who
had had all their property confiscated because of their sympathy with
the insurrection against Spain, had secured restitution through the
government at Washington, and who came now to beg the Commission for
protection against their own people and for the speedy establishment of
peaceful American rule in the islands.
Then came Artacho. Artacho had been Aguinaldo’s rival in the
insurrection against Spain and he very much resented the selection, by
the Americans in command, of Aguinaldo as the leader of the Filipino
forces when Dewey went into Manila. He was sufficiently annoyed to leave
the country and take refuge in Hongkong. He professed entire ignorance
of the activities of the “junta” and unqualified loyalty to the
government of the United States, but, as he had with him a “secretary”
who very carefully listened to all he had to say, and as he seemed to be
very cautious in all his expressions, Mr. Taft decided that he was being
watched and was, if not actively connected with the “junta,” at least
“on the fence” and in his call only “casting an anchor to windward” in
case the Americans should succeed in pacifying the Islands and
establishing a government there with which it would be very nice indeed
to be connected. It must have been a very diplomatic, a very soft-spoken
and a most amusing meeting.
Among other things the Commission had to do in Hongkong was to secure
Chinese servants. They had been told that this was absolutely necessary
because the unsettled state of affairs in Manila made Filipino servants
entirely undependable.
Captain McCalla, of the _Newark_, had given to my husband in Yokohama, a
letter to one L. Charles, a Chinese who ran a sort of employment agency
in Hongkong, but when L. Charles came out to the _Hancock_, in response
to a message from Mr. Taft, he brought with him the surprising news that
the servants had already arrived from Shanghai and had been waiting for
several days. Mr. Taft was greatly astonished, as he was unconscious of
having made any arrangements at all, but L. Charles smilingly explained
to him that Admiral Dewey had attended to it. Then Mr. Taft remembered
that, sure enough, Admiral Dewey had, several months before in
Washington, offered to secure servants through his own Chinaman, Ah Man,
but he, himself, had forgotten all about it.
However, he sent for the men and when they came aboard one of them
proudly produced a note from the flag officer of the _Brooklyn_,
enclosing a note to Ah Sing, the steward of the _Brooklyn_, from Ah Man,
Admiral Dewey’s servant. It read:
_My dear Ah Sing_:
It is a new Governor-General coming up to Manila City. His name is Mr.
Wm. H. Taft and he is going to sail from here first of April. The
Admiral asked me to write to you and ask if you please find him some
good Chinese servants for Mr. Taft. He like to have a very good cook
just like myself the Admiral said and two men to wait on table a
butler and second man just like you. Now would you be so kind as to
try to find some very nice people that will take good care and will
understand their business. The Admiral will be very much oblige to you
I am
Your truly friend,
AH MAN.
This is an example of what is known in the East as “flen-pidgin,” which
may be literally translated as “friend-work.” It is a Chinese system,
but it has been adopted by the representatives of every country in the
world to be met out there and it is by no means the least of the
elements which enter into the charm of the Orient.
One of the objects for stopping in Japan was to enable the Commissioners
to get white duck and linen clothes for the tropics and Mr. Taft had the
worst of luck in getting anything to fit him. In the beginning we had
some rather heated discussions as to the style of dress that he should
adopt. He had been assured that the most comfortably dressed men were
those who wore “straight button ups” as they are called. These are coats
which have a high, round collar and button straight down from the
chin—plain military jackets, in fact. They are worn without shirts,
collars, ties or anything except underwear and trousers and are, no
doubt, very nice for the tropic heat. But I did not consider that such a
severe style would bring out the lines of my husband’s figure to the
best advantage, so I prevailed upon him to have all his clothes made
with sack coats which should be worn with the usual accessories. It was
a sad experience in Yokohama, but he left for Hongkong full of hope,
having been told that the tailors there were much better. He wrote in
utter disgust. The tailors were not good; he had been to every shop in
town looking for wearing apparel of all kinds and could find nothing
large enough for him. He said he had imagined that Englishmen were, as a
rule, large enough to demand men’s sizes,—but evidently not. He had to
have everything, shoes, stockings, underwear, shirts, collars and hats
made to order—and then they didn’t fit.
My husband’s letter, full of strange names, of assassination, of
smuggled arms, of dark intrigue and unrest generally, left a vague
impression in my mind that he was going into a country where he would be
subjected to murderous attacks every few minutes. Then I reflected that
he was not quite alone; that General MacArthur and about seventy
thousand American troops were down there too, and that they could
probably be depended upon to do everything in their power to protect
him.
Our life in Yokohama was very placid. It was some time after our yellow
placards were removed before our neighbours began to call on us, and we
didn’t blame them. No doubt they felt that it would be foolish to risk
getting diphtheria just for the sake of being formally polite. We were
delightfully entertained, both before and after the Commission sailed,
by Mr. and Mrs. T. Williams McIvor, who are among the old American
residents of Yokohama. Mr. McIvor had been American Consul General, but
when we met him he was engaged in a private law practice, representing
the American Tobacco Company and other large foreign concerns. As Consul
General he had taken care of the Chinese during the Japan-China War and
had sent about eight thousand of them out of the country. He was now
representing the foreign business community in its dispute with the
Japanese government as to whether or not the property known as the
Foreign Concession, or The Settlement, was taxable. This area had been
granted by the Japanese government on perpetual lease at the time the
first treaties with Japan were made, and the holding of it by foreigners
was conditioned on the payment of a ground rent to the government which,
it was provided, should never be increased beyond a certain amount. But
now Japan was greatly in need of money, was taxing its own people in
every way possible, and eventually decided to levy a tax on the houses
and improvements upon this land, on the theory that improvements on land
are not a part of the land itself. But by the Civil Law and the Common
Law the provision in the treaties that no tax should be paid on the
property greater than that fixed in ground rent would have prevented the
levying of any tax on the buildings because, by such laws, improvements
are considered to be a part of the land. But in Japanese law it was said
they were not so regarded and the question was whether the treaties were
to be construed according to Japanese law or according to the laws of
foreign governments. The subject was one of endless discussion while we
were there, and Minister Buck had already referred the question to the
State Department at Washington.
We also dined with Mrs. Scidmore, whom I was to meet many times in after
years. Mrs. Scidmore is the mother of Eliza Ramaha Scidmore, the well
known writer about Far Eastern countries, and is, I suppose, the most
notable foreign figure in the Orient. She had lived in Japan since the
early days, not so long after the country’s doors were opened to the
world. Her son was in the Legation service when I met her and she had a
charming house on the Bund, in which was gathered a remarkable
collection of Japanese curios and objects of art. Mrs. Scidmore was then
nearly eighty years of age I think, but she was as bright and young as a
woman of fifty. The last time I saw her she was nearly ninety and she
entertained us at luncheon in Nagasaki, where her son was American
Consul. She dresses with as much care and is as interested in fashions
and fabrics as any girl, and it is a rare pleasure to see her, with her
snowy hair piled up on her head and a white silk gown spread out about
her, sitting in the centre of a group of people discussing, with great
animation and entire comprehension, general topics of current interest.
She afterward went to “keep house” for her son in Seoul, Korea, where he
became Consul General, and she continues to be a sort of uncrowned queen
of foreign society.
Leaving our children at the bungalow with their nurses, Mrs. Wright,
Maria and I went about, to Nikko, to Kamakura, to Kyoto and other
interesting places, and we spent the intervals, indeed all our time, in
restraining our intense desire to purchase everything we saw in the
extraordinarily attractive little shops.
About the last of July, when the heat began to be rather more than we
could stand, we left Yokohama and went up into the Hakone Mountains to
Miyanoshita. The trip to Miyanoshita includes a two hours’ climb in
’rickshas up a steep incline from a village on the railway, where there
was then no sort of accommodation for “Europeans,”—only Japanese inns
which, though they may have been excellent from a Japanese standpoint,
did not seem to us to have been built for inn purposes. When we got out
of the train it was seven o’clock in the evening. There were Mrs. Wright
and her maid, her daughter Katrina, my sister Maria, the three children,
Bessie the nurse, and I. We wanted dinner above all things else and we
decided to get it. It all had to be prepared “European style” at one of
the little inns, so by the time it was served and disposed of the night
was upon us, and, I may say, the blackest night I ever remember seeing.
We debated at length the possibility of taking the two hours’ ’ricksha
ride in such darkness, but the chattering coolies, mainly by gesture and
facial expression, succeeded in convincing us that it was the most
desirable thing in the world to do. Incidentally, and aside from our
objection to the bedless inns, we were most anxious to reach our
journey’s end. So—we set out, in eight ’rickshas, six for us and two
piled high with hand luggage. I put Helen and Robert together in one and
took Charlie in with me, and each of us had an extra man behind to push,
also two men each for the baggage ’rickshas, which made sixteen men in
all. We made quite a cavalcade and I felt fairly satisfied, not to say
mildly festive, until we got away from the lights of the town and
discovered, to our amazement, that for some reason or other, the
’ricksha men had failed to bring lights. I believe the idea was that
they could keep the road better without them. We went along for a short
distance in the Stygian darkness, then Maria decided that she wouldn’t
have it. Whatever we might do, she was going back for a lantern. We were
not in an argumentative mood, so we let her go without a word, while we
plunged on.
[Illustration:
HELEN TAFT IN JAPANESE COSTUME
]
By that time the wind was tearing down through what seemed to be a very
deep, and what certainly was a very dark, canyon, and it was raining
steadily. My coolies lagged behind and the first thing I knew I found
myself entirely alone. The others had gone so far ahead that I couldn’t
even hear the sound of their ’ricksha wheels, though the ’ricksha of
those days was a very noisy little vehicle. I had been nearly two months
in Japan, had had plenty of experience with ’ricksha coolies and I knew
them to be the most inoffensive little men in the world, but the
darkness and the wind-driven rain and the discomfort generally, must
have got on my nerves because I began to be perfectly sure that my two
men were nothing less than brigands and that the separation from my
party was a prearranged plan for murder and robbery. I didn’t know how
wide the road was, but I knew that on one side there was a very deep
chasm because I could hear the roar of a mountain torrent far down and
directly below me. Then the coolies chattered and grunted incessantly,
as Japanese coolies always do, and I was convinced that they were
arguing about which should take the initiative in violence. But I sat
tight and said nothing, which was the only thing I could do, of
course—except to soothe Charlie who was crying with discomfort and
fright—and after awhile—ages it seemed to me—I came upon the rest of my
party where they had halted in the road to give their men a breathing
spell. I couldn’t see them; I couldn’t even make out the outlines of a
’ricksha, but I could hear Helen sobbing and stammering something about
having lost her mother for good and all.
The coolies were chattering at each other at a terrific rate and I
judged, from their tones, that they liked the night no better than we.
While we were standing close together in the road, all talking at once
and trying to tell each other what horrible experiences we had had, we
saw a faint glimmer away in the distance, growing more and more distinct
as it came up the long hill. It was the dauntless Maria with a light. We
fell upon her with the warmest welcome she probably ever received in her
life, and everybody at once cheered up. Even the coolies got happier and
seemed to chatter less angrily in the lantern’s dim but comforting
yellow glow. Nor did we separate again. Everybody wanted to keep close
to that light. It revealed to us the reassuring fact that the road was,
at least, wide enough for safety, and so we rolled soggily along, with
no other sound but the rattle of many wheels and the splash of mud,
until we arrived at the Fujiya Hotel, sometime after ten o’clock, in a
state of utter exhaustion.
I am not going to describe Miyanoshita because it has been very well
done by scores of writers, but I will say that the Fujiya Hotel, away up
in the mountains, at the head of a glorious canyon, is one of the most
splendidly situated, finely managed and wholly delightful places I ever
saw.
And there are plenty of things to do. We were carried in chairs over a
high mountain pass to Lake Hakone, which, still and bright as a
plate-glass mirror, lies right at the base of Fujiyama and reflects that
startlingly beautiful mountain in perfect colour and form.
Then there are temples and wayside shrines, and tea-houses—tea-houses
everywhere. We were coming back from a tramp one day and stopped at a
tea-house not far from our hotel where we encountered an Englishwoman
who gave us our first conception of what the terrible Boxer Insurrection
was like. She entered into talk with us at once and told us a most
tragic story. She was a missionary from the interior of China and had
been forced to flee before the Boxers and make her way out of the
country in hourly peril and through scenes of the utmost horror. Her
husband had elected to remain at his post and she didn’t then know but
that he might already have died under the worst imaginable torture. She
made our blood run cold and we were tremendously sorry for her, though
she did tell her harrowing story calmly enough. It seems she had with
her a young Chinese refugee who was a convert to Christianity and,
because of that fact, in even more danger in China than she.
We expressed our sympathy and good wishes and continued on our way. But
we hadn’t gone far when we heard a frantic shouting behind us:
“Have you seen my Chinaman! Have you seen my Chinaman anywhere on the
way!”
It was the missionary, distracted and running violently after us; and,
we had not seen her Chinaman. She rushed past and up into the woods
faster than one would have thought she could run, and all the time she
kept calling, “Joseph! Joseph!” at the top of her voice. We decided that
Joseph was the Chinaman’s new Christian name since we had heard that
they all get Biblical names at baptism. We hastened along, thinking she
might have gone suddenly mad and we wondered what in the world we should
do. But as we came around a bend in the road we saw her coming toward us
with a grinning little queued heathen marching meekly before her. She
was looking very much relieved and stopped to explain her rather
extraordinary conduct.
“I was perfectly certain that boy had committed suicide,” she began.
“Why, what made you think that?” I asked.
“Well, he wrote that, and I found it!” And she thrust into my hand a
piece of paper on which was scrawled in printed characters:
Just as I am, without one plea,
Save that Thy blood was shed for me,
And that Thou bid’st me come to Thee,
O Lamb of God, I come, I come.
She explained that Joseph had had a great deal of trouble; was away from
his people; that Chinamen didn’t care anything about their lives anyhow;
and that she had been afraid for some time that he would grow despondent
and do something desperate.
But there stood Joseph, broadly smiling and looking for all the world
like an oriental cherub who would have liked very much to know what all
the commotion was about. Poor chap, he didn’t understand a word of
English and had been merely trying to learn the words of an English hymn
by copying them, in carefully imitated letters, on bits of paper.
In the meantime my husband had arrived in Manila and had already sent me
several letters through which I came gradually to know something of the
situation he was facing.
The principal impression I received was that between the Commission and
the military government, in the person of General Arthur MacArthur,
there did not exist that harmony and agreement which was considered to
be essential to the amicable adjustment of Philippine affairs. In other
words, General MacArthur seemed to resent the advent of the Commission
and to be determined to place himself in opposition to every step which
was taken by them or contemplated. It was not very easy for the
Commissioners, but as far as I can see now, after a careful reading of
all the records, they exercised the most rigid diplomacy at times when
it would have been only human to have risen up and exercised whatever
may be diplomacy’s antithesis.
The description of the arrival of the Commission made me rather wish I
had accompanied them;—except for the heat. It was June and my husband
said the sun beat down upon and came right through the heavy canvas
awnings on the decks of the _Hancock_. The men had, by this time, become
accustomed to their ill-fitting white linens, but they had not yet
mastered the art of keeping them from looking messy, and they must have
been a wilted company during their first few days in Manila.
They came up into the harbour on Sunday and during the course of the day
received many interesting visitors. General MacArthur was not among
them, but he sent a member of his staff, Colonel Crowder, to present his
compliments and make arrangements for the going ashore ceremony the next
day. Then came the _Americanistas_, as the Filipinos who sympathised
with American control were called. These had been recognised by General
Otis before General MacArthur had arrived and many of them have always
been prominently associated with the American government in the Islands.
Among others were Chief Justice Arellano, Mr. Benito Legarda and Mr.
Pardo de Tavera. The Commissioners talked about the situation with these
gentlemen, through Mr. Arthur Fergusson, the Spanish Secretary of the
Commission, and found them not altogether despondent, but certainly not
optimistic about the outcome. They thought the Commissioners were facing
very grave problems indeed, if not insurmountable difficulties.
The next day—“just when the sun got the hottest,” wrote Mr. Taft—all the
launches in the harbour gathered around the _Hancock_, many whistles
blew, many flags and pennants fluttered, and the Commission was escorted
to the shore. They entered the city with great pomp and circumstance,
through files of artillerymen reaching all the way from the landing at
the mouth of the Pásig River, up a long driveway, across a wide moat,
through an old gateway in the city wall and up to the Palace of the
Ayuntamiento where General MacArthur, the Military Governor, had his
offices. But it was not a joyous welcome for all that. All the show was
merely perfunctory; a sort of system that had to be observed. Their
reception was so cool that Mr. Taft said he almost stopped perspiring.
There were few Filipinos to be seen, and as General MacArthur’s
reception to the Commission was anything but cordial or enthusiastic
they began to feel a discomforting sense of being decidedly not wanted.
If they had any doubts on this point General MacArthur soon cleared them
up. He frankly assured them that he regarded nothing that had ever
happened in his whole career as casting so much reflection on his
position and his ability as their appointment under the direction of the
President. They suggested that he could still rejoice in considerable
honour and prestige as a man at the head of a division of more troops
than any general had commanded since the Civil War and that he was,
moreover, still enjoying the great power of Chief Executive of the
Islands.
“Yes,” said he, “that would be all right if I hadn’t been exercising so
much more power than that before you came.”
Whereupon Mr. Taft gently reminded him that he had been exercising that
power for about three weeks only and said he hoped he had not become, in
that time, so habituated to the situation as to prevent his appreciating
the rather exalted position in which he would still be left. They
afterward exchanged some correspondence as to what powers each did have,
but they seemed to have disagreed from the first.
General MacArthur succeeded General Otis in command of the United States
Army in the Philippines and he had fallen heir to a policy with which he
was entirely out of sympathy. General Otis had scattered the troops in
small divisions and detachments all over the Islands, and General
MacArthur found himself in command of about seventy thousand men, but
with only a few regiments where he could lay his hands on them for
action in his own immediate vicinity. He believed that the only way to
get rid of the predatory bands and bring order out of a chaotic state,
was to concentrate the army on the island of Luzon where most of the
active _insurrectos_ operated. And he thought it would be many years
before the Filipinos would be ready for anything but the strictest
military government. But the trouble was that thousands of Filipinos all
over the Islands had already sworn fealty to the United States, or had
gone quietly back to work, and it was known that the lives of many of
these would not be worth a moment’s purchase if the protection of the
American troops was withdrawn from them. That was the situation.
The last engagement between real insurgents and American troops had
taken place in February before the Commission arrived. There had been
men of some ability and real patriotism in Aguinaldo’s cabinet and among
his followers at Malolos, but by this time the best of them had come in
and taken the oath of allegiance to the United States, others were in
prison slowly making up their minds as to whether they would or would
not follow this course, while still others had gone over to Hongkong to
join in the activities of the “junta.” Aguinaldo was still roaming
around the mountain fastnesses of Luzon, posing as a dictator and
issuing regular instructions to his lieutenants for the annihilation of
American regiments; but the insurrection had degenerated.
The companies of men who still kept the field did so, for the most part,
because they found that the easiest way to make a living. Money was
getting scarce and the people were steadily refusing to contribute to
the cause. A letter from one of Aguinaldo’s lieutenants was intercepted
in which he said that he had found a certain town obdurate and that he
thought it would be necessary to take four or five lives before the
people could be induced to give money. Murder and rapine, torture and
robbery; these were the methods employed, and very little of the money
realised ever found its way into the general revolutionary coffers. Most
of the remaining “patriots” had become _ladrones_ and were harrying
their own people much more than they were opposing the American forces.
These conditions led the Commission to think the time had come to
organise a native constabulary, under American officers, with which
thoroughly to police the Islands. But General MacArthur did not agree
with them; thought it would be folly to trust any Filipino with arms and
cited instances of where those who had been armed as scouts had proved
entirely untrustworthy. But the suggestion was received by many of his
own officers with the utmost approval and one man, in the Ilocos country
in northern Luzon, said he had only to issue a call and he could have
five thousand as loyal men as ever wore uniform enlisted in twenty-four
hours. I may say here that the Filipino people are divided into a number
of distinct tribes and that some of these never did take much, if any,
part in the insurrection. The insurrection is to-day referred to as the
Tagalog rebellion, the Tagalogs being one of the principal tribes,
though not the largest.
There had always been a great number, a majority in fact, of Filipinos
who did not like the awful conditions created by the insurrection and
who easily could be persuaded to an attitude of loyalty toward any
decent and peaceful government; and it was from this number that the
Commission wanted to recruit a native constabulary. But no. The
Commission would not begin to exercise such powers as it had until
September and in the meantime General MacArthur was absolute and in
answer to this proposition he merely reiterated his belief that the only
way to meet the situation was with additional American troops.
In my husband’s earliest letters he characterised the Filipino people
much as he did after years of experience with them. He wrote me that of
the six or seven millions of Christian Filipinos about two per cent.
were fairly well educated, while all the rest were ignorant, quiet,
polite people, ordinarily inoffensive and light-hearted, of an artistic
temperament, easily subject to immoral influences, quite superstitious
and inclined, under the direction of others, to great cruelty. He
thought them quite capable of becoming educated and that they could be
trained to self-government. He was inclined to think that they had,
because of their environment and experience under Spanish rule, capacity
for duplicity, but he did not think they had the Machiavellian natures
which people attributed to them. Some of those who call themselves
“_illustrados_”—the higher class—took to political intrigue with great
gusto.
Almost the first experience which the Commission had with Filipino
Machiavellian methods involved them in a complication which might have
proved quite serious. If there is one thing in the world that the
Filipino people, as one man, love, it is a _fiesta_. A _fiesta_ is a
holiday, a celebration with music, marching, many flags, best clothes
and plenty of high-flown speech-making. Now there was one Pedro A.
Paterno, an unctuous gentleman, who, while he had taken the oath of
allegiance and had fairly put himself in the pocket of American
authority, was still supposed to be more or less in sympathy with
Aguinaldo. He made himself the mediator between General MacArthur and
Aguinaldo and occasionally promised Aguinaldo’s surrender. Nobody ever
knew what he promised Aguinaldo, but it was known to a certainty that he
was “carrying water on both shoulders” and doing his best to keep in
well with both sides. He had played the same rôle in Spanish times. He
made what is known in history as “The Peace of Biacnabato,” between the
_insurrectos_ and the Spanish government, by the simple means of
“interpreting” to each the demands of the other in perfectly
satisfactory terms. He did all the translating, on both sides, himself
and the “Peace” was signed. Then before its irregularities were made
clear he asked of the Spanish government, as his reward, a dukedom and a
million dollars upon which to live up to the title. His letter to the
Spanish governor is still extant.
This gentleman one day, out of a clear sky, proposed what he called an
Amnesty Fiesta; a grand banquet in honour of General MacArthur to follow
a day of celebration and all-round relaxation from the strain of
hostilities. General MacArthur didn’t see that it would do any harm, but
said he would not attend the banquet in his honour and that all the
speeches that were to be made would have to be carefully censored. To
this Pedro readily agreed and went immediately to work to make elaborate
preparations for the occasion. He got a committee together and sent them
to wait on the Commission with an invitation to the banquet. Only three
of the Commissioners were in town, but these, after making careful
inquiry as to the nature of the entertainment and discovering that no
incendiary speech-making was to be allowed, decided to accept the
invitation. Paterno was in high feather and nothing but the _fiesta_ and
the _banquete_ was talked about for days. But gradually information
began to reach the ears of Mr. Taft that all was not as it should be. He
learned that arches were being erected across certain streets bearing
inscriptions that were insulting to the American flag. One arch, in
front of Malacañan Palace, where General MacArthur lived, had a picture
of President McKinley on one side and a picture of Aguinaldo on the
other, and it was said that General MacArthur had ridden under this arch
without noticing it. That would be taken for sanction by an ignorant
Filipino. But as soon as notice was called to them all the objectionable
features of the arches were removed and preparations went on. But
rumours kept coming in about the speeches until Mr. Taft became curious.
He went to General MacArthur and asked who was doing the censoring.
“Why, Pedro Paterno,” said the General; as much as to say, “What more
could you ask?”
Mr. Taft went back to the office and straightway set about to get copies
of those speeches. And, he got them. Some of them were already in type
at a local newspaper office and were to be printed in full the next
morning. This was the day of the _fiesta_ and it was proving a very
quiet affair. There was little enthusiasm on the streets, but there was
plenty of interest in the coming _banquete_. The Commissioners looked
over all the speeches and found them, without exception, seditious in
the extreme. So, of course, they could not go to the banquet. They could
not sit by and listen to misrepresentations without getting up
immediately and making vigorous denial and protest and they could not
lend the sanction of their presence to an entertainment that had been so
arranged. The _banquete_ was in General MacArthur’s honour and the
speeches glowingly promised everything short of immediate evacuation and
complete independence.
The Commissioners wrote a polite little note to Señor Paterno and said
they were very sorry to find that it was not possible, under the
circumstances, for them to be present that evening.
Mr. Taft and General Wright were living together in the house that my
husband had secured for us, and they went home and had a comfortable
dinner in their everyday white linens and were enjoying post-prandial
talk on the cool verandah when Pedro Paterno came rushing in and,
figuratively, threw himself on his knees before them. He begged them to
come with him to the _banquete_; the crowd had assembled; it was past
nine o’clock; and he would be placed in a terrible situation if the
gentlemen of the Commission did not reconsider their cruel decision. The
gentlemen of the Commission asked how about the carefully censored
speeches. Paterno vowed that no speeches at all should be delivered,
that no word of any kind should be said, but that they must show
themselves to the people, if only for a little while. All right. They
quickly got into their hot evening clothes and went down to the banquet
hall. They sat through a couple of silent, weary hours, took a few sips
of wine, smiled a few smiles, shook a few hands, and then went home.
That was all there was to it. But Pedro was discredited in both camps.
His purpose had been to have the speeches made before the Commissioners,
claim all the credit with his own people for getting the Commissioners
there and then to deny to the Commissioners all responsibility for the
occasion.
The forms of military government were being strictly observed; there was
a nine o’clock curfew and nobody was allowed on the street after that
hour without a pass. Mr. Taft wrote of several trying experiences when
he went out in the evening and forgot his pass and, starting home about
half past ten, was held up by one sentry after another who demanded an
explanation at the point of a gun.
Mr. Bryan was running for President at this time and he was making a
good deal of political capital out of the Philippine situation. He had
promised to call a special session of Congress, if he were elected, to
consider means for settling the Filipinos in immediate self-government,
and he had a large following of mistakenly altruistic anti-imperialists
supporting him. Mr. Taft was inclined to think that the whole
anti-American demonstration, which was to culminate in the Amnesty
Fiesta banquet, was planned by a Mr. Pratt, an American politician then
visiting Manila, who wanted the “grandly patriotic” speeches to publish
in American newspapers. They probably would have been perfect material
for the anti-imperialists to grow sentimental over.
In the meantime Mr. Bryan’s promises and the possibility of his being
placed in a position to redeem them, were retarding pacification. All
that was needed to discourage the last of the _insurrectos_ was Mr.
McKinley’s election, and the Presidential campaign of 1900 was probably
not watched anywhere with more breathless interest than it was in the
Philippine Islands.
Such were the lessons in letters that I got from my husband, and my
imagination was fired. He had great projects in hand. The Commission
proposed to establish municipal governments wherever conditions made it
possible and among the first things they undertook was the framing of a
municipal code upon which to base such governments. They sent this to
General MacArthur for his comments, but his comments consisted in a
rather pointed intimation that military rule was still in force and that
he thought they were several years ahead of possibilities, but that they
might go on and amuse themselves since their municipal code would not
deter him in any action he found it necessary to take at any point where
it was in operation. All this was couched in most excellent diplomatic
language, of course, but it amounted to just that. An equally diplomatic
reply seems to have brought the General to a realisation that the powers
of the Commission were well defined, that their object was peaceful
pacification wherever it was possible and that they would probably be
supported by Washington in any reasonable measures they might take to
that end.
They had many plans already; a big general school system for the
organisation of which they had engaged a superintendent from
Massachusetts; good roads to open up the country for commerce; harbour
improvements; health measures; a reliable judiciary; a mountain resort
where American soldiers and civilians might recuperate from tropic
disease, thereby saving many lives to say nothing of millions of dollars
to the government in troop transportation charges; and they were already
attacking the vexed friar question that had caused all the trouble in
the first place.
The letters made me anxious to finish my visit in Japan and get down to
Manila where so much of vital and engrossing interest was going on. My
husband wrote rather discouragingly about the house he had taken, but he
was having some improvements made and, though I did not expect to find
comfort, I was sure I should manage to get along. I had purchased in
Japan a number of bright and artistic objects in the way of house
decorations and I thought that, with these, I should be able to make
almost any place look inviting.
The Boxer rebellion was troubling us more than anything else at the
moment. We wanted very much to go to Shanghai, but were told that it
would be absolutely unsafe for us to go anywhere in China except to
Hongkong. I didn’t know much about the East at that time and was ready
to believe anything that was told me. However, I remembered that there
were thousands of foreign residents in Shanghai who were going on about
their daily affairs much as if there were no such thing as a Boxer. So
we, too, decided to go on our usual tranquil way and we set sail for
Manila, via Shanghai and Hongkong, on the Japanese steamer, _Kasuga
Maru_, on the tenth day of August.
[Illustration:
MRS. TAFT IN FORMAL FILIPINA COSTUME
]